Any animal (including humans) that travels through the underbrush of the outdoors, especially grasses, is susceptible to attack by a great variety of ticks, many of which often carry diseases including the potentially fatal Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. Once entangled within the hair of an animal host (e.g., a dog) the tick will eventually work its way to the surface of the animal's skin and cement its head beneath the surface of the skin into direct fluid communication with the bloodstream of the host animal or human. If not removed from the skin of the host, the tick will feed on the blood of the host. During this feeding period, the tick is likely to transmit a disease carrying organism into the bloodstream of the host, endangering the health, and in some cases the life of the host.
In recent years, with the onset of Lyme disease (caused by a spirochete bacterium that is transmitted by tiny ixodes classification ticks, among others, tick removal from pets and humans has become evermore important. The ixodes tick that is responsible for lyme disease is present on animals, plants and vegetation throughout the spring, summer and early fall. The recent occurrence of mild winters has permitted year round activity in many locations. Many relatively simply mechanical devices for removing ticks from the surface of the skin have been developed and are commercially available. These devices are not only fairly complex and relatively expensive, many fail to effectively remove a wide variety of the tick species typically encountered by animals and humans, such as the smaller ixodes tick responsible for lyme disease.
Many of the existing devices operate with a tweezer-like pinching action and are designed to engage and remove larger ticks which have already become engorged with the hosts blood. Using a device that relies upon a tweezer-like action to remove a tick may be unnecessarily painful to a host because the relatively bulky pivoting members of such devices typically pinch and remove nearby hair from the pet or person. Also, devices that require a pinching action for operation may squeeze the body of the tick sufficiently to rupture it. In such instance, the release of bacteria from the tick may be forced into the bloodstream of the host prior to the removal of the tick. Another risk of using these devices includes the incomplete removal of the entire tick. Because the penetrating mouth parts of the tick are generally embedded and cemented in the skin of the host that has been attacked, the body of the tick has a tendency to separate, when it is pulled or pried away from the skin surface, leaving the tick's mouth parts embedded in the skin of the host where they can continue to be a source of irritation, and secondary infection. Accordingly, in removing a tick from the skin surface, it is particularly important because of possible bacterial infection, to remove the entire body of the tick without rupturing or otherwise damaging it.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,938,764 issued to Glabeson discloses a tick remover which includes a handle assembly supporting a wire loop assembly. The wire loop defines an elongated channel into which the "neck" of a feeding tick may be positioned. The tick, once engaged within the channel of the wire loop may be pried from the surface of the animal's skin. Although the problem of accidentally entangling nearby hair is eliminated with the patented arrangement, this device is ineffective at removing smaller ticks because the elongated channel of Glabeson's device is simply rounded, not tapered. Furthermore, the closed loop in the Glabeson device makes it difficult to position the tick within the channel. An awkward movement is required to position a feeding tick within the Glabeson device, at times causing the tick to become obstructed from view. This may result in incomplete removal of the tick.